


we're dancing in this world alone

by owlvsdove



Series: soft shock [8]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Academy Era, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 10:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2618156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlvsdove/pseuds/owlvsdove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma has an idea about how to fix this whole mess. It involves a lot of kissing. Shocker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. maybe people are jerks (but not you)

 

She's pacing.

This isn't entirely strange. She paces from time to time. It's the vitriol coming out of her mouth in conjunction with the frenetic movement that's making him anxious. Mostly directed towards herself. He doesn't like that.

It's finals, and more importantly it's finals before graduation. They're about to not be students anymore.

Her heart might be breaking.

But also her brain might be breaking, because despite the fact that she's an obsessive note-taker and a diligent studier, she is convinced she's going to fail.

Which is obviously ridiculous.

Which is what he’s been telling her for the last week, but, as usual, it falls on deaf ears. She doesn’t thrive on panic so much as _survive._ It chews her up for a few weeks but she gets work done through the grind.

He’s lying on her bed (the bed where they, well, didn’t do anything except hold each other. Which was nice, much nicer than he’d dreamed) staring at the ceiling, trying to give her space without actually leaving her company.

She’s got fairy lights strung up and her room, and after a while he turned them on and turned off the overhead light. They were still bright enough to read by, but they weren’t aggravating his headache at least. Now everything is painted in shadows. Especially her eggshell face and her bitten lips.

“Let’s go out for a few minutes. Just take a walk.”

She whirls. “What’s the use? It’s not going to make it easier to accomplish anything when I get back.”

“It might?”

“This whole day has been a waste.”

They probably should have gone to the library this morning and stayed there. At least that way she’d be forced to quiet her own panic. Jemma hates to get emotional in public.

(She hates it in private, too, but. She can hardly avoid that forever, can she?)

He sits up, stands up, so she stops moving, stops in the middle of the rug on the floor.

“What do you want to do then?”

Her chest is heaving, and he doesn’t think she realizes. “Just. To rewind. I just want to go back a few months...or years.”

“We haven’t built a time machine yet.”

She nearly smiles. “No, we haven’t.”

“We could do that now.”

“We don’t have time to do that now,” she says. “We’re out of time.”

“Exams don’t start for another two days.”

But something comes over her face. Something he doesn’t understand. Meaning _he_ just misunderstood. _We’re out of time_.

“We’re out of time,” she says again.

Oh.

_Oh._

“I don’t understand,” he says faintly. Lie. He does understand, _fuck_ he understands.

“We can’t keep going on like this,” she says. She sounds totally breathless. He’s a little worried about her health.

“I don’t even know what _this_ is,” he says. “I’ve never known.” He should stop talking but he doesn’t. “This was you, you started this whole thing.”

It’s not meant to sound like an accusation, but his panic, unidentifiable and potent, is ramping him up, so it stabs at her anyway.

“You’re not an unwilling participant,” she says.

“No, but—”

“You’re not innocent.”

“I’m not saying I am!” he says. “But _you—_ ”

“I know.” It comes out quietly. “This is my fault.”

He struggles for a moment, trying to find a way to both comfort and blame her. He doesn’t have the finesse to figure it out. His heart is too confused.

“Where does this leave us, then?” he says, rubbing his temples.

She frowns deeply. “What do you mean?”

“You’re just...done with me?”

Her expression shifts into horror. “No!”

His relief, fast and warm, is tinged with blood. He’s still unsure.

“Then what do we do now?”

She opens her mouth but nothing comes out.

 

 

 

 

He wakes to knocking. Insistent knocking. Knocking without pause. He rolls out of bed and stumbles towards the door.

She drops her fist. “Hi.”

“What did we say about waking me up at six AM?”

“I have an idea,” she says, breathless once again.

“Did you sleep?”

“I don’t need sleep. I’m invincible.”

“Aren’t you always telling me I don’t get enough sleep?”

“That’s you. I’m me. I’m fine—I’m _great_. I have an idea.”

“You should go to sleep.”

“I have an idea.”

“About what?”

“About us.”

He stops.

“Okay.”

“We can’t keep going on the way we’ve been, agree or disagree?”

“Agree.” He means it.

“So let’s finish this. Let’s go out with a bang—er, wait. No. Um. What I mean is, the night before we graduate. That’ll be it. The last night. We’ll finish it properly.”

“And then what?”

“And then we go live our lives as the most brilliant SciTech duo the Hub has ever seen.”

He thinks.

She’s right. This doesn’t have to be the end. Far from it. This, if anything, is the end of the first page of the book that will become their shared history. There is a sense of permanence in her words, and that excites him more than anything.

He pulls her in by the waist and shuts the door to his room so he can kiss her.

“Good idea then?”

“Good idea.”

Her shoulders sag with relief. Her hand is on his neck, anchoring her as her head rolls forward. “Jesus, I’m exhausted.”

He rolls his eyes a bit and gestures towards the bed. She moves forward without a second thought, kicking off her shoes and crawling in. He gets in as well, and Jemma ends up pressed ear to chest.

Morning light pours in as they both fall back asleep.

 

 

 

 

Somehow an entire lifetime has passed and they’re still too young to drink in this country.

It’s not a big deal, as the bartenders at the Boiler Room know them well enough to know not to ask, but it’s amusing, at least.

Most of the graduating class has congregated here for the last night and it’s turned into something of a tender-hearted rager. Everyone’s excited, but a lot of people are also weeping. The music is pounding but most people are sitting around hugging. It’s bizarre.

They feel good though.

Jemma and Fitz have a round of shots. And then another. And then a beer. And then another.

(And another and another.)

And then she peeks at him and he peeks at her and they know it’s time.

 

 

 

 

Fitz wishes he had a record player.

That’s how all of these scenes start out, right? The soft bump of sound as the needle is dropped, the static white noise of anticipation, and then whatever low, crooning noises seem romantic enough for the occasion.

Instead he has a stereo, which is old enough to still have a tape deck. And he didn’t think to make a mixtape for this, especially because last time he did was in year eight and it turned into a bit of a disaster. So he’d rather not think about it.

But there’s a CD already in there, suitable enough for the mood, so he lets it play.

He holds her.

Her arms are around his neck and his are locked behind her waist and they are standing very close swaying together in the middle of his room and how is it possible that she still makes him feel like this, _how_ , because the entire thing seems so improbable he’s having trouble remembering it’s not an elaborate fantasy.

She’s watching his chest rise and fall, pushing skin and lungs and blood out of the way so she can watch his heart beat. She’s got this moony look on her face like she did on the roof that one time when they were dicking around with the astronomy lab’s telescope after hours. A look like she’s overcome with deep reverence.

It strikes him. Knocks him breathless. She looks like he feels. She looks how he looks when he’s with her.

This is going to be hard. It’s not a step back, really. He’s not certain if this feeling will ever really change. But it’s a new set of conditions under which they’ll have to behave.

His grip tightens.

It’s not over, _it’s not_. It’s just different. A lateral shift. He’s still going to talk to her and work with her and peek inside her head and catch her moony face out of the corner of his eye. They’re still going to belong to each other.

It’s going to be hard. But it’s worth it.

Big, loving eyes look up at him.

She kisses him backwards towards the bed.

 

 

 

 

But they don’t have sex.

Well, that was the plan all along, right? Go out with a bang. Once at the beginning. Once at the end. Perfect symmetry.

But this isn’t the end.

They kiss for a long time. She backs him up until his legs hit the bed with a jerk, and then he sits. She straddles him and he holds her back with wide-sprawled fingers and desperate palms so she doesn’t lose her balance.

She is beseeching and flirtatious and curious and well-traveled and also very serious. Her lips love his lips. Deeply and eagerly.

She tugs his layers away and pulls her shirt over her head. He falls back and she follows.

She is so close to him. He wants to hide here. He wants to use her as shelter and hibernate in her warmth, in the darkness of her shadow.

Instead, he flips them over and buries his face into her neck. His neediness beats out any grasp at sensuality every time. He grips her tightly and breathes her in and shuts his eyes to everything. He hopes he isn’t too heavy but he knows she’ll shove him off if he is.

She cradles his head to her chest.

They stay that way for a long time.

Then he kisses his way back to her mouth.

She smiles. She also wiggles a bit, so he moves off of her and lay on his side, head in hand. Jemma mirrors him.

“I like these,” he says, gesturing to the divine underneath her bra.

She smirks. “I know.”

“I also like this,” he says, laying a hand on her hip.

“You know the words for these things,” she says.

“ _You_ know the words for these things,” he counters. “I also like your ears.”

Her nose scrunches in confusion. “And your nose. And your lips. Your whole face, really.”

“But they’re not your favorite part.”

“No.”

“What’s your favorite part?”

“Your brain.”

She smiles so wide her eyes close.

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same,” she manages.

“Oh, yeah?” he says. “If you say my cock, I swear—”

“Ugh, Fitz, it’s not even in the top twenty.”

“Alright, then, what?”

She taps him.

“My chest cavity? Honestly, Simmons—”

“Your _heart._ ”

“Oh.” Oh. “Well.” Then he thinks. “You have a top twenty?”

“Hush.” She leans forward for a kiss. And another. And another.

 

 

 

 

He wakes up mildly hungover with his pants still on.

Jemma stirs a moment after he does. She blinks into the morning sun, frowning. “Did we—”

“Forget to have sex. Yeah.”

She laughs. Loud and long and really hard, and he joins her.

And then they realize what time it is. A mad scramble to get to commencement on time. He’s tossing her clothes at her and she’s shrugging them on just enough to get across the lawn to her room so that she could properly get ready, and he’s asking her if he has to wear anything under his gown, and she shrieks back _what if there’s wind_ so he puts on the slacks she picked out, and then he doesn’t see her again until he turns in his chair to find her eyes, three rows behind him. F before S.

Which Jemma doesn’t really think is fair, and later she’ll complain about he got to be a SHIELD agent eight minutes before she did, and he’ll goad her and she’ll flick a bit of drink at him, and he’ll laugh.

And Jemma doesn’t cry all day, except for a brief moment when Agent Weaver is presenting her with her new badge. Level 2. They’d already been promoted.

Fitz shoots her a grin from the other end of the stage because he knows, she knows, _they_ know that this is only the very beginning. The end of the first page.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE IS AN EPILOGUE, FRIENDS.


	2. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Present day. He can't stop himself from bringing it up.

 

“We were in love at the Academy,” he says. He’s sending up a test balloon.

They’re sitting on the floor, resting up against the wall after a rather cutthroat row.

He waits.

She nods. “Yeah.”

“I wasn’t even, I mean. I didn’t even realize that was what it was. Until this time around.”

In his periphery, he can see her nod again.

He continues: “We ended it. We both agreed. And it was fine. We both got over it.”

“Yeah,” she says. She sounds a little unsteady.

“I think I could do it again,” he says.

“Do what again?”

“Get over it. I just need more time, but…I think I could.” He won’t turn his chin, he _won’t_. “Is that what you want?”

She opens her mouth, and for a moment no sound comes out; but she manages: “I want you to do whatever you want. Feel however you want.”

“How do you feel?”

Are they always going to do this? Push the burden of cutting themselves open back and forth between each other?

(Yes. Until one of them refuses to take the knife.)

She sags, collapsing inwards. “I’m not sure,” she breathes. “There’s too much going on; I can’t settle my head long enough to figure it out.”

“You’re supposed to use your _heart_ , Simmons.”

She gives him a look. “I don’t love with my heart, I love with my _brain._ ”

He smiles genuinely at this. What a Jemma thing to say.

“I just need you to do whatever’s best for you,” she says seriously. “And if that’s getting over _this_ then that’s okay. And if my time comes along and it’s too late then…that’ll be my problem.”

Wrong. Every problem is their problem.

God, he’s not getting over her. Not in a million years.

“I just want us to be better,” she finishes. “I want us to fix this.” She looks at him pleadingly. Doe eyes (unintentional), sweet lips (biological), big heart (unavoidable).

He puts his arm around her. She loses the tension instantly. She rests her head on his shoulder, takes his other hand in hers and rests them on his knee.

“So,” he says, feeling calm. “Where to start.”

She sighs. “Where indeed.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiyah kids so i'd like to take this moment to thank everyone who read this. i don't think i've ever had a fic met with such enthusiasm so i'm really appreciative of all the comments and messages and things. shortly after this goes up i'll be posting the entire thing and the mix on tumblr, so you can head to mine if you want to reblog that. thank you again you precious precious kittens.


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